Chapter Sixteen

John shoved me behind a boulder and turned to brace himself for impact. A crawler landed on top of him, trying to claw at his helmet. Before I could think to help him, or even fully realize what had happened, he'd ripped the construct's head from its body.

That was the last one; they'd all been killed.

John pushed the dead crawler off of him. "Those weren't the same as the Prometheans in the terminus."

"No, they weren't." I forced my aching body to stand. "But they were similar."

I looked down at a crawler's corpse. There were two Forerunner pistols. Boltshots, something whispered in the back of my head.

I picked one up and turned it over in my hands.

There was a chasm ahead, with sweltering magma at the bottom. A hardlight bridge across.

John walked across the clearing and activated the bridge. I was still staring at the massive alien pistol in my hands.

He turned back to me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." I continued to study the boltshot. "I think...I know how to use this."

"We need to move. Take it with you."

I nodded, magnetizing the weapon to my thigh.

We walked across the bridge and into another canyon path. This one sloped down and curved to the right, towards the pylon.

Something was wrong. Something was setting me on edge. Something was making the hair on the back of my neck stick up.

John felt it too.

My heart stopped as a massive Promethean dropped down from the canyon wall. It landed on John, pulling back its facial mask to screech at him. Its "real" face was a human skull made of blue hardlight.

"John!" I stumbled back.

He grunted, punching the knight across the face. Then he kicked it away from himself. As he jumped to his feet I shot my hand out and wrapped around the Promethean.

My hand contracted into a fist, reducing the Promethean to a tight ball of scrap metal.

When I let go the remains evaporated in a flurry of orange particles.

"John, are you okay?"

He nodded as I limped up to him. My eyes looked him over and I intruded a bit into his mind; he wasn't hurt.

I ran my hand down his chest. "Thank god. I-I'll keep a better watch now, I promise."

John started walking down the path again. The beam pylon was growing closer and closer.

"Did you see its face?" he asked.

"I did." I looked down. "It gave me more questions than answers. I'll try to figure it out if we see one again."

"I think you mean 'when'."

My head shot up.

Our path followed one wall of the canyon, to the left. The other wall split off to our right. And, across from us, was the wall of an even bigger canyon. There was a huge drop off into it scarcely a few feet in front of us.

Prometheans were phasing in and out along the far wall of the canyon; they could teleport.

There was a Forerunner structure in the clearing to our left. All the way on the other side. And I could feel Prometheans, both knights and crawlers, closing in on us.

"John, they're coming," I whispered.

"Stay low."

"No, John, it's a lot. You won't be able to-"

"I said stay low." His desperation to keep me safe would be the death of him.

A pack of crawlers rushed towards us. John crouched behind the stone I was already using for cover, looking through his rifle's scope. Two shots rang out, and a crawler was reduced to scraps.

He wouldn't be able to take them all.

I took a deep, calming breath. I could do this; I'd seen plenty of combat at this point.

I could handle myself, despite what John thought.

My mind reached out. An urge. A place. My body fell numb.

I rephased over a Promethean knight. I let myself fall, jamming my new hardlight pistol into its neck and firing down into its core.

Its body began glowing; shredding itself. A massive data purge.

Before I had the chance to fall I was teleporting again. Behind the crawlers, who were closing in on John.

The boltshot was clearly made for beings several times larger than me. What they wielded with one hand, I had to use two.

It didn't matter, it was just as effective.

I shot down one of the crawlers before they processed what was happening. By the time they turned to fight me I was gone. Dephased.

I reappeared in the air. There was a Promethean drone of sorts, a watcher, who was providing the knights with support from the air.

I was floating behind it. Two well-placed shots sent it spiralling for the ground.

John was out in the open clearing now, having dealt with all of the crawlers. I turned just in time to see a knight appear behind him, shooting him in the back.

"No!" I shot my hand out and latched around the Promethean. In the ultrasonic waves, it couldn't teleport out.

I drew the knight up, away from John. He looked okay; his shields had taken the damage. I forgot he had shields; I didn't have shields.

Professor Anders had meant to install them after we secured the artifact, way back on Earth. Then shit hit the fan, and it never happened. It felt like only a month ago, but it was really almost three years.

Focus, damn it.

I slammed the knight back into the ground, listening to its metal body collapse in on itself.

My ankle once again complained as I landed next to John.

His voice was hard, and he towered over me. "I told you to stay down."

"And I told you there were too many to take on alone." I took a breath. "What matters is, we're both okay."

He tossed his empty rifle aside and picked up a suppressor rifle from the corpse of a Promethean. "I don't think that was the last we'll see of them."

I exchanged my half-empty boltshot for a full one I found on the ground. "I don't think so, either."

We walked together into the doorway. It was a long hallway through the stone, curving slightly to the right. Right towards the beam pylon.

When we reached the other door I grabbed John's wrist. "Knights. A-and crawlers, and watchers."

"You won't stay down, will you?" He hated admitting that.

I shook my head.

"Be safe."

"I will, John. Don't worry."

He checked his new Forerunner rifle. "Ready?"

I lifted a few inches into the air as the door slid open.

"Now." He took aim and incinerated a watcher.

A crawler found us right away. I flew around the right wall of the clearing, shooting at it to draw its attention away from John. It seemed to work, which was good.

But now there was an entire pack of crawlers slinking towards me, pinning me to the wall, which was bad.

My hand shot out, crushing a few of them.

I didn't want to expend my powers; we had much more fighting to do. The other beam pylon was waiting, and doubtlessly just as guarded as this one.

Plus the Covenant. We still had to stop the Covenant.

So I couldn't exhaust myself any more than I already had. Not that these crawlers were giving me much of a choice.

An idea hit me. I teleported to the top of a large boulder in the middle of the clearing. Behind the pack of watchers.

As they tried to locate me I wrapped my hands around a fallen lightrifle. It was nearly as big as me, but not as heavy.

I heaved it up, laying flat over the rock. Like Linda did when she was sniping.

Only problem is, my aim seemed to suck. Of the five shots I fired, only two hit their mark.

That crawler did die, but it left me once again vulnerable to the rest of the pack.

I picked the lightrifle up with both hands, hugging it to my body as I scrambled to get away from them. My ankle gave out under my weight with a shock of pain that seemed to immobilize my entire leg.

I curled in on myself, rolling clumsily down the boulder. When I reopened my eyes - which had been clenched tightly shut - I saw a crawler on the boulder above me. It snarled, its body shaking with bloodlust.

With a terrified cry I shoved the lightrifle off of me and pulled my boltshot out, hitting it in the face with the hardlight round. There was a spine-chilling screech as it retreated.

Its companions weren't so easily warded off.

I rolled onto my knees, shooting at the encroaching crawlers. I took down several, and injured a handful. There were three left.

I fired the boltshot. It clicked uselessly; empty.

The lightrifle was still lying next to me. I grabbed it with both hands, pulling it up onto my shoulder. Hopefully I would be able to fire the massive thing from there.

I took aim and shot at the closest crawler. The first shot missed, but the second hit it right in the neck. Its head popped off and rolled towards me. The body fell, sparking, to the ground.

There was a snarl above me. One of the crawlers had jumped up, pouncing for me.

Even if I shot it down, its weight would crush me.

A burst of orange hardlight slammed into the crawler. It jerked to the side, landing harshly next to me. I turned to see John, behind a rock along the wall, with a suppressor rifle out.

He'd just saved my life. Again.

I forced myself to focus. There was one crawler left.

Three shots and I took it down.

I used the lightrifle like a staff to help stand up, and turned to John. "Thank you."

He didn't say anything, tapping the side of my helmet where my cheek would be.

"The pylon is really close." I discarded the lightrifle.

A blue box lit up in the corner of my HUD. Another comm. The speech was completely inaudible, but there was a staticky picture. An older man with white hair.

"John, do you see that?" I asked.

"I see it."

"But I can't hear what he's saying. It's- it must be the beam."

John looked over to the end of the clearing. There was another doorway. We walked through, into another hallway. It beat going around the canyons, that was for sure.

The door slid open to reveal a huge Forerunner complex; the beam pylon. It was crawling with Prometheans.

"That's our target." John nodded towards the center of the complex, a large metal building, where the purple beam was shooting up from.

"The entrance is surrounded by a shield," I warned.

"So we'll take it down."

"I-I don't know." I pulled back into the hallway. "There's a lot of Prometheans. Something like that would take forever."

John pulled back as well, looking down at me. "What do you suggest?"

I glanced back out. "I think I can teleport inside the barrier, a-and disable the beam from there."

"It's too risky." He shook his head.

Another transmission from the Song. This one displayed their location. They were approaching Requiem.

I thought they were already inside.

"John!" I gasped.

"I see it."

"They're not inside the planet yet."

He looked down. "If they get caught in the gravity well…"

"We have to warn them, John. I have to do this."

He grabbed my arm. "Come back as soon as the beam is down."

"I will. I love you, John."

"I love you too."

I closed my eyes and reached out for the control center of the pylon. My body dissipated into trillions of little blue particles.

I reformed inside a large room. There was a huge beam of light in the center, shooting up towards the satellite so far away, and a control mechanism in front of it.

There was a piston of sorts, inside the mechanism. A handle on the top of it. I knew immediately how to disable the beam; I had to pull that unbelievably heavy piston out, and then push it back in.

The cylinder must have weighed at least four times my weight, and I was four hundred pounds in the armor.

I reached out with my hand, wrapping a band of ultrasound around the handle. I pulled it up, my hand curling into a fist. It rose, slowly. Slowly.

My entire body was strained, even though my mind was doing the lifting. I groaned through clenched teeth.

When the piston was all the way out I formed a cover over its entire upper surface. Then I pulled my hand back and shoved. The cylinder slammed back down. The beam cut out.

I heard another transmission from the Song. "Fleetcom Actual, we've detected a UNSC beacon coming from somewhere inside the planet."

There was an ID with the speaker this time; Captain Andrew Del Rio.

They were following the Dawn's distress beacon, in the inner surface of Requiem, and the beacons from both my suit and John's suit. The Dawn's distress beacon would lead them straight to the gravity well. Which would tear the ship to shreds and kill everyone on board.

I teleported back to John. My landing was rough on my ankle, but I shoved that down and hobbled up to him.

"We have to warn them! I..." I glanced around, "I can open a portal from that node."

John followed my finger to a small outlet on the fringes of the complex. If we timed it right, we could escape through it before the Prometheans had a chance to attack.

He nodded. "Do it."

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Hi guys! This week felt super short for some reason.

Are you guys quarantined? My family is; we've got more than a hundred confirmed cases in my state rn oof

Be safe guys!